French President Nicolas Sarkozy is wooing far-right voters after losing narrowly to his Socialist rival in the presidential election's first round.

Francois Hollande came top with 28.6% and Mr Sarkozy got 27.1% - the first time a sitting president has lost in the first round.

Third-place Marine Le Pen took the largest share of the vote her far-right National Front has ever won, with 18%.

Referring to her voters, Mr Sarkozy said: "I have heard you."

"There was this crisis vote that doubled from one election to another - an answer must be given to this crisis vote," he said.

In a speech to supporters in Tours, Mr Sarkozy also blamed "a media unleashed" for his first round result.

"We were campaigning against caricatures and lies... and I thank you for your support," he said.

Pollsters say Mr Hollande is the clear favourite to win the second round on 6 May, a duel between him and Mr Sarkozy, who leads the centre-right UMP.

The Dutch government, one of the biggest critics of European countries failing to rein in their budgets, has resigned after disagreeing on a plan to bring its own deficit in line with EU rules.

Queen Beatrix accepted the resignation of prime minister Mark Rutte and his cabinet after a meeting in which he told her talks on a new austerity package had failed over the weekend.

Mr Rutte will address parliament on Tuesday to discuss interim measures to keep public finances in order and schedule new elections. No date for elections was immediately announced, but opposition MPs called for a vote as soon as possible.

The collapse came a day after the first round election victory of France's soft-on-austerity socialist candidate Francois Hollande. It calls into question whether austerity policies that are causing trauma in countries such as Greece, Spain and Portugal can be enforced even in "core" European countries such as France - or the Netherlands, one of the few along with Germany to maintain an AAA credit rating.

Mr Rutte's hopes to clinch a deal to cut the target below the EU's 3% target evaporated on Saturday, when his most important political ally, populist eurosceptic Geert Wilders walked out of the talks, saying a slavish adherence to European rules was foolish and would harm the Dutch economy.

That view is shared by some, such as the government's own Central Plan Bureau, and opposed by others, such as Dutch Central Bank President Klaas Knot.

Finance Minister Jan Kees de Jager insisted he still plans to submit an outline budget to Brussels by April 30, as mandated by European rules.

An Icelandic court found a former prime minister g uilty on Monday of one charge related to t he collapse of the country's banks in 2 008 b ut exonerated hi m on three other charges and decided not to punish him.

F ormer prime minister Geir Haarde, 61, was the only leader in the world to face prosecution over the global financial cr isis.

A special court found Haarde guilty of failing to hold dedicated cabinet meetings ahead of the crisis, which was one of four charges against him, but exonerated him on three other charges. The special court of impeachment was set up in 1905 but the Haarde case was its first trial.

"It is absurd," Haarde told reporters after the verdict.

"It is obvious that the majority of the judges have found themselves pressed to come up with a guilty verdict on one point, however minor, to save the neck of the parliamentarians who instigated this," he added.

There has been anger on the North Atlantic island as many wonder why none of the men in charge of the banks that collapsed have been tried - even though a handful of charges have been brought and dozens of investigations are underway.

Icelanders took to the streets during the crisis, clashing pots and pans outside parliament in downtown Reykjavik.

The protests sometimes turned violent in a country renowned for its peaceful nature.

The verdict , broadcast live on TV, may not heal wounds and may l ead to questions o ver who should take responsibility for a crisis that was emblematic of the global credit crunch.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said progress in the talks to reunify the divided island of Cyprus was insufficient to call an international conference. The statement appears to put an end to hopes that Cyprus' upcoming EU presidency could be a catalyst for the resolution of the Cyprus problem.

The announcement was made by Ban's spokesperson on Cyprus on 21 April after Ban met with Alexander Downer, the UN special advisor on Cyprus (see background).

Turkish and the Greek Cypriot media reported that Ban held telephone calls earlier that same day with the Republic of Cyprus President Demitres Christofias and Turkish Cypriot leader Derviş Eroğlu.

UN mediators had previously said they wanted a deal ending four decades of separation between ethnic Greeks and Turks on the Mediterranean island before Greek Cypriots, who represent the island internationally, take over the EU presidency in July.

Ban has been pressing the two leaders to reach a settlement, and Downer said last month he had planned to call an international conference by early May, bringing together Britain, Greece and Turkey with the aim of putting the finishing touches on an accord, the Turkish daily Zaman reported.

But Downer said the two sides have not yet converged closely enough on key issues. He said talks are stalled on how executive power would be shared under an envisioned federation and on how to deal with private property losses resulting from the 1974 partition of the island.

The Turkish Cypriot leader accused the Greek side of failure in the reunification talks. Eroğlu has said that there would be no point in carrying on with talks after June, but Christofias insists that negotiations ought to continue even during the country's EU presidency.

The European Union has formally agreed to suspend sanctions against Burma for a year in recognition of "historic changes", officials say.

An embargo on arms sales, however, will stay in place, the EU Council said.

The EU had imposed measures against individuals and companies from Burma. It had also withheld some aid money.

The move comes after Burma's parliament re-opened amid a boycott by the opposition because of a row over the oath of office for MPs.

The EU decision, which had been expected, will take effect later this week.

Financial markets react badly to the dual whammy of an Hollande victory in the first round of the French elections, and the offer of resignation by Dutch PM Mark Rutte; French 10-year spreads were approaching 1.6% last night, and Dutch spreads rose to their highest levels in over three years;Italian and Spanish were well over 4%, while German 10-year yields fell to 1.558%; Dutch finance minister Jan Kees de Jager spent part of his day yesterday explaining why the Netherlands was not a basket case after all; some commentators are now concerned that the now likely defeat of Sarkozy, political instability in the Netherlands, and uncertainty about the Irish referendum make the fiscal pact more uncertain; Nicolas Sarkozy and Francois Hollande are luring Le Pen voters promising that they will take up their concerns; Erik Izraelewicz in Le Monde argues Marine Le Pen is the real winner of the first round; Bild sees the Eurozone curse bringing down one government after the other; June 27 is considered to be a possible date for the Dutch elections; Bundesbank writes that Germany will need between 150.000 and 200.000 immigrants per year if the country wants to maintain its growth; Spanish GDP contracts 0.4% in Q1; a third Irish trade union has called for a rejection of the fiscal pact; Eurostat included for the Irish deficit last year some €5.8bn or 3.7% of GDP of capital injected into the two State-controlled banks; Hans-Werner Sinn, meanwhile, says Greece would have a very quick recovery if it left the eurozone.

Spain's economy contracted 0.4% in the first quarter from the fourth, the country's central bank said Monday, the latest evidence that Spain's efforts to rein in government spending could be feeding a downward economic spiral.

The central bank numbers, released about a week before the government's official data, confirm that Spain is far from a much-needed economic rebound--in which government austerity measures have damped growth, which could in turn make it tougher for Madrid to achieve ambitious austerity targets.

On an annual basis, the economy contracted 0.5%, the first negative reading after seven consecutive quarters of modest annualized growth, the Bank of Spain said in its monthly economic report. This marks the official end of a mild recovery between late 2010 and late 2011, after a deep slump that began in 2008 in tandem with the country's property bust.

In the fourth quarter of last year, Spain's gross domestic product contracted 0.3% from the third quarter, but grew 0.3% on an annual basis.

The central bank also said Spain's economy, the fourth-largest in the euro zone, faces several quarters of uncertainty and downside risks related to developments in the euro-zone debt crisis. Earlier this year, the bank said it expects the Spanish economy to contract 1.5% in 2012. But private-sector economists have warned of a deeper drop as Madrid slashes government spending.

There is a sense of crisis in France. Unemployment is at a record high and growth is well behind Germany's. Economic expert Isabelle Bourgeois spoke with DW's Andreas Noll about the need for reforms.

On balance, French President Nicolas Sarkozy's economic performance is a bitter disappointment: In his five years in office, the country's unemployment rate has gone up, the national debt has risen and the promised economic upturn has not materialized. French industry is still hemorrhaging jobs at the rate of 1,000 a month. In search of an economic role model, Sarkozy turned to Germany. France, he said, needed reforms similar to the so-called "Agenda 2010" introduced in 2003 under former Social Democrat Chancellor Gerhard Schröder. The controversial concept was aimed at cutting Germany's social services costs and liberalizing the labor market to make the country more competitive.

DW: For weeks, the so-called "German model" was a hot topic in the French media. As the French election approaches, where does the debate stand now?

Isabelle Bourgeois: As soon as the discussion turns to Europe - for example, the debt crisis - then the issue is present, or when the debate turns to how deep the social welfare cuts were in Germany. Then the one side or the other warns that if so-and-so is elected, the same would happen in France. Otherwise, the discussion about the German model has died down.

What deficits does France have compared to the German economy, if we are talking about modernity?

France has a whole bunch of deficits, which have developed over the years. The first, and perhaps biggest deficit, is that France has still not realized that the world economy is globalized. I often compare the situation to the famous Asterix-and-Obelix comics, where the Gallic villagers could always beat up the dumb Romans. But that does not solve the problem of globalization because you have to live with it. That realization has yet to arrive in France. The second problem is: France has not understood, even after decades, what European integration actually means, and therefore has difficulty finding where it belongs.

Almost nine million people in the European Union were considered "underemployed" in 2011, according to new Eurostat figures. These numbers add to the growing ranks of nearly 25 million unemployed in the EU, highlighting a ticking social time-bomb.

Some 42 million workers in the EU were employed part-time in 2011, according to a survey by the European statistical office, Eurostat, up from 41.3 million the year before.

Of those, 8.6 million - more than 20% - said they were available to work more, a situation of so-called "underemployment" that is raising concern at the European Commission.

"Many people who are self-employed, in part-time or fixed term contracts, continue to be inadequately covered by social protection," the European Commission said on 18 April in a strategy for a 'job-rich recovery'.

This category of workers is "often being rewarded unfavourably compared to people in full-time permanent contracts," the EU executive added in an accompanying working document, referring to "levels of pay" and "holiday rights".

In some countries, part-time workers who consider themselves underemployed are half or more than half the total. In Greece, 58% of part-time workers declare themselves available for working longer hours. In Latvia, this percentage reaches 57%, in Spain 49% and in Cyprus 42%.

Back in December last year while discussing the ongoing woes of Europe, I suggested tha the fiscal compact may never actually be enacted because attempts to do so would have such a disastrous outcome that European nations will inevitably give up. I also mentioned in February that one of the things that could potentially effect any implementation was the European people themselves when they got to have a say about what was going on.

Over the weekend round one of the French presidential elections took place, and the results certainly aren't pro-compact. In fact, I am not even sure they are pro-Europe:

Far-rightist Marine Le Pen threw France's presidential race wide open on Sunday by scoring nearly 20 percent in the first round - votes that may determine the runoff between Socialist favorite Francois Hollande and conservative President Nicolas Sarkozy.

Hollande led Sarkozy by about 29 to 26 percent in reliable computer projections broadcast after polling stations closed, and the two will meet in a head-to-head decider on May 6.

But Le Pen's record score of 18-20 percent was the sensation of the night, beating her father's 2002 result and outpolling hard leftist Jean-Luc Melenchon, in fourth place on 11 percent. Centrist Francois Bayrou finished fifth on less than 10 percent.

Le Pen, who took over the anti-immigration National Front in early 2011, wants jobs reserved for French nationals at a time when jobless claims are at a 12-year high. She also advocates abandoning the euro currency and restoring monetary policy to Paris.

Wall Street's latest problem: too many bankers and not enough deals.

Amid new regulation, lower profits and a dreary market for mergers and acquisitions, several banks are planning to trim investment-banking units that were built for an era of deals aplenty.

Having already slashed bonuses, banks including Citigroup Inc., Goldman Sachs Group Inc., J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. and Morgan Stanley are preparing to cut dozens of jobs, including some held by senior bankers, according to people familiar with the matter. As they pursue this targeted round of trims as soon as next month, they and rivals are also revisiting profit expectations for their advisory businesses, people familiar with the matter said.

Until recently, Wall Street's ax had largely fallen on trading desks, which shed thousands of jobs as business dried up due to regulations and lackluster markets.

But the cost-cutting focus is now expanding to deal makers and corporate advisers that have remained among Wall Street's most high-profile professionals even as their contributions to banks' bottom line has been dwarfed by traders. In addition to mergers-and-acquisitions advisory, investment banking includes raising capital through stock and debt.

 

Shells and gunfire from Syrian security forces have killed at least 33 people in the city of Hama, activists say.

Dozens have reportedly also been injured in two northern districts.

EU foreign ministers meanwhile imposed a new round of sanctions, banning the export of luxury products and goods that could be used to repress dissent.

UK Foreign Secretary William Hague said Damascus was "not in full compliance of the ceasefire requirements" of the peace plan negotiated by Kofi Annan.

On Sunday, Mr Annan described as a "pivotal moment" the UN Security Council's decision to deploy up to 300 observers to Syria.

"The government in particular must desist from the use of heavy weapons and, as it has committed, withdraw such weapons and armed units from population centres and implement fully its commitments under the six-point plan," Mr Annan, the UN and Arab League envoy to Syria, added.

The head of the Egyptian Natural Gas says it has terminated its contract to ship gas to Israel because of violations of contractual obligations, a decision Israel said overshadows the peace agreement between the two countries.

The 2005 natural gas deal has become a symbol of tensions between Israel and Egypt since the uprising. For many Egyptians, it typifies the close relations the regime of deposed President Hosni Mubarak forged with Israel and how his associates benefited greatly from such business deals.

Critics say that Israel got the gas at below-market prices and that Mubarak's cronies skimmed millions of dollars off the proceeds, costing Egypt millions of dollars in lost revenue.

Egyptian militants have blown up the gas pipeline to Israel 14 times since the uprising more than a year ago.

Israel insists it is paying a fair price for the gas.

Mohamed Shoeb, the head of the Egyptian Natural Gas Holding Company, said on Sunday that the decision to cancel the deal was not political.

"This has nothing to do with anything outside of the commercial relations," Shoeb said.

Sudan fighter jets on Monday bombed several positions in South Sudan's oil-rich Unity state, marking a resumption of clashes days after troops from the south began withdrawing from a disputed border region to avoid full-blown war.

The Sudanese planes dropped bombs on Bentiu, the capital of the border Unity state early Monday, killing at least three civilians, according to Martin Jada, a spokesman at South Sudan's information ministry. He said Sudan fighter jets also hit the oil town of Rubkona in the same state, leaving several civilians injured. Meanwhile, Sudanese ground troops on Monday attacked civilian settlements in Unity state, Mr. Jada added, but he gave no details on causalities.

Sudan "continues to violate our air space," Mr. Jada said in a telephone interview. "It seems their only interest is war."

A South Sudan military officer in the capital, Juba, said the Sudanese ground attack took place at a settlement some 10 kilometers (six miles) from the border. He said South Sudanese troops repulsed the ground attack, forcing combatants to retreat across the border, but poor air defenses failed to engage the Sudanese jets.

The Sudanese attacks drew a sharp response from the U.S., a staunch ally of South Sudan.

North Korea's military vowed today to launch unspecified "special actions" soon meant to reduce South Korea's conservative government and media companies "to ashes" in less that four minutes, in an escalation of its recent threats. 

North Korea regularly criticises Seoul and just last week renewed its promise to wage a "sacred war," saying South Korean President Lee Myung-bak had insulted the North's April 15 celebrations of the birth centennial of national founder Kim Il Sung. 

But today's military statement, which vowed actions of "unprecedented peculiar means," was unusual in promising something soon and describing a specific length of time. 

The threat follows UN condemnation of North Korea's launch of a long-range rocket that exploded shortly after liftoff on April 13. Washington, Seoul and others called the launch a cover for testing long-range missile technology. Pyongyang said the launch was meant to put a satellite into orbit. 

The North's special actions "will reduce all the rat-like groups and the bases for provocations to ashes in three or four minutes, (or) in much shorter time, by unprecedented peculiar means and methods of our own style," according to the statement by the special operation action group of the Korean People's Army's Supreme Command. 

The Pentagon is planning to ramp up its spying operations against high-priority targets such as Iran under an intelligence reorganization approved last week by Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta, a senior defense official said Monday.

The newly created Defense Clandestine Service would work closely with the CIA to expand espionage operations overseas at a time when the missions of the agency and the military increasingly converge.

The defense official said the plan was developed in response to a classified study completed last year by the director of national intelligence that concluded that the military's espionage efforts needed to be more focused on major targets outside war zones.

The new service will seek to "make sure officers are in the right locations to pursue those requirements," said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss what he described as a "realignment" of the military's human espionage efforts.

The official declined to provide details on where such shifts might occur, but the nation's most pressing intelligence priorities in recent years have included counterterrorism, nonproliferation and ascendant powers such as China.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has spoken on state TV for the first time since he arrived in Cuba for more cancer treatment nine days ago.

Mr Chavez, 57, dismissed rumours that he had died undergoing radiotherapy for a second tumour in his pelvic region.

Speaking over the phone from Havana, he said rumours about his death were part of a psychological war against him.

He had surgery in February and has been shuttling back and forth between Caracas and Havana for treatment.

"It seems we will have to become accustomed to live with these rumours, because it is part of the laboratories of psychological war, of dirty war," he said.

Cuba will move nearly 50 percent of the state's economic activity to the "non-state" sector, a senior Communist party official said at the weekend, the latest signal the island is headed toward a mixed economy.

Cuban President Raul Castro has hammered away at the need for the state to become more efficient and get out of secondary economic activity such as farming and retail services since taking over for his ailing older brother, Fidel, in 2008.

China and Vietnam adopted similar measures in the last few decades of the 20th century as they began to shift to what is known as market socialism.

"Today, almost 95 percent of gross domestic product is produced by the state. Within four or five years between 40 percent and 45 percent will result from different forms of non-state production," a long-time Communist party political bureau member, Esteban Lazo Hernandez, said in a speech to the Havana city government.

Lazo, who is considered by many to be the Communist party's top ideologue, said the increased private business and the tax revenue the move would generate meant local government needed to improve its efficiency in order to cope with the shift, according to clips of his speech broadcast by state-run television on Sunday.

Colombia Reports: Thousands of people took to Bogota's streets Monday to celebrate the birth of Colombia's new leftist political party, the National Patriotic Council.  Estimates of the total attendance varied greatly, with newspaper El Espectador reporting "at least 35 thousand" while RCN Radio put the figure at about 20,000.

Honduras Culture and Politics: Another journalist, Maya TV (Channel 66) on-air personality Noel Alexander Valladares was murdered this morning.  Valladares was shot to death in his car as it left the TV station after finishing his morning show.

Argentina:

MercoPress: Brazil's President Dilma Rousseff following a meeting with an Argentine delegation from the energy sector ratified her country's decision to "strengthen the investment and the presence of the oil company, Petrobras, in Argentina".

MercoPress: Representatives from the Group of 77 plus China meeting in Doha, Qatar approved a statement calling on the UK to resume negotiations with Argentina regarding the sovereignty of the Malvinas question, according to a release from the Argentine Foreign Ministry.

BUENOS AIRES, Apr 20, 2012 (IPS) - Hundreds of Spanish companies continue to do business in Argentina, despite Madrid's campaign in defence of Repsol, which controls YPF - the oil company that the government of Cristina Fernández plans to renationalise.

Setty's Notebook: Every oil analyst is suddenly a bit more focused on Argentina than they were a week or two ago. (...) Yes, shales offer gas, but what's exciting about Repsol's discoveries in Argentina is that these rocks also yield oil. In the Argentine context, that makes these rocks more valuable, as gas prices are generally controlled at a low level, and exports are strictly controlled.

MercoPress: Argentina's economy grew at an annual rate of 5.2% in February according to the country's stats office Indec monthly economic activity report Emae, reflecting good performances in construction and manufacturing.

SANTIAGO, Apr 23, 2012 (IPS) - A criminal lawsuit against 1,500 former members of DINA, the secret police of Chile's 1973-1990 dictatorship, is seeking to shed light on the most active player in the repression, which stretched outside the country's borders.

LAHT, BEIJING - The value of China's trade with Latin America rose 31.5 percent last year to $241.5 billion, a senior Chinese official said.

AS/COA: Some three hundred representatives of Paraguay's Indigenous peoples demonstrated in the capital city of Asunción yesterday, marking the Day of the American Indigenous and demanding access to education, health and ancestral lands. They came from across the interior of the country and once in Asunción, walked 10 kilometers (6 miles) from Cerro Lambaré, a monument to an Indigenous chief, to the seat of the national Congress, in a demonstration that included dancing, music, the selling of artisan handcrafts, and shaman rituals.

Scientists have made what they believe to be the first sighting of an adult white orca, or killer whale.

The adult male, which they have nicknamed Iceberg, was spotted off the coast of Kamchatka in eastern Russia.

It appears to be healthy and leading a normal life in its pod.

White whales of various species are occasionally seen; but the only known white orcas have been young, including one with a rare genetic condition that died in a Canadian aquarium in 1972.

The sightings were made during a research cruise off Kamchatka by a group of Russian scientists and students, co-led by Erich Hoyt, the long-time orca scientist, conservationist and author who is now a senior research fellow with the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society (WDCS).

By the time today's elementary schoolers graduate from college, the U.S. corn belt could be forced to move to the Canadian border to escape devastating heat waves brought on by rising global temperatures. If farmers don't move their corn north, the more frequent heat waves could lead to bigger swings in corn prices -- "price volatility" -- which cause spikes in food prices, farmers' incomes and the price livestock farmers and ethanol producers pay for corn.

A study published April 22 in the journal Nature Climate Change shows for the first time climate change's outsized influence on year-to-year swings in corn prices.

Researchers from Stanford and Purdue universities found that climate change's impact on corn price volatility could far outweigh the volatility caused by changing oil prices or government energy policies mandating biofuels production from corn and other crops.

"Frankly, I was surprised that climate had the largest effect of these three influences," said Noah Diffenbaugh, an assistant professor of environmental Earth system science at Stanford's School of Earth Sciences and a fellow at the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment. "These are substantial changes in price volatility that come from relatively moderate global warming."

The study, based on economic, climatic and agricultural data and computational models, finds that even if climate change stays within the internationally recognized target limit of 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit above pre-industrial levels, the temperature changes could still make damaging heat waves much more common over the U.S. corn belt.

James Lovelock, the maverick scientist who became a guru to the environmental movement with his "Gaia" theory of the Earth as a single organism, has admitted to being "alarmist" about climate change and says other environmental commentators, such as Al Gore, were too.

Lovelock, 92, is writing a new book in which he will say climate change is still happening, but not as quickly as he once feared.

He previously painted some of the direst visions of the effects of climate change. In 2006, in an article in the U.K.'s Independent newspaper, he wrote that "before this century is over billions of us will die and the few breeding pairs of people that survive will be in the Arctic where the climate remains tolerable."

However, the professor admitted in a telephone interview with msnbc.com that he now thinks he had been "extrapolating too far."

The new book, due to be published next year, will be the third in a trilogy, following his earlier works, "Revenge of Gaia: Why the Earth Is Fighting Back - and How We Can Still Save Humanity," and "The Vanishing Face of Gaia: A Final Warning: Enjoy It While You Can."

The new book will discuss how humanity can change the way it acts in order to help regulate the Earth's natural systems, performing a role similar to the harmonious one played by plants when they absorb carbon dioxide and produce oxygen.

It will also reflect his new opinion that global warming has not occurred as he had expected.

"The problem is we don't know what the climate is doing. We thought we knew 20 years ago. That led to some alarmist books - mine included - because it looked clear-cut, but it hasn't happened," Lovelock said.

Nomad in 2006: Yeah.

Germany is one of the European Union's top recyclers, sending nearly no garbage to landfill, according to a recent report. Friends of the Earth questions the numbers, though.

The European Union's executive has identified Germany among Europe's most exemplary recyclers and wants other European countries to copy its policies.

According to a recent report on European waste management, Germany, Belgium, Denmark, Austria, Sweden and the Netherlands have nearly eliminated waste from garbage tips thanks to a combination of restrictions and fees.

"Six Member States now combine virtually zero landfilling and high recycling rates," said EU Environment Commissioner Janez Potocnik in a statement.

"Not only do they exploit the value of the waste, they have created thriving industries and many jobs in the process."

The UK and US will work together to develop "floating" wind turbines to harness more offshore wind power at a potentially lower cost, the government said on Monday.

Before this week's clean-energy meeting of ministers from 23 countries in London, the government announced it will collaborate with the US in developing wind technology to generate power in deep waters that are currently off-limits to conventional turbines.

In order to exploit the UK's huge wind resource, which accounts for about one-third of Europe's offshore wind potential, new technology is needed to access waters between 60 and 100 metres deep: too deep for turbines fixed to the seabed, but where wind speeds are consistently higher.

It is hoped that developing the technology will increase the UK's potential for offshore wind power, particularly after 2020, by which time many shallower sites will have been developed.

The government believes it could also reduce the current high cost of offshore wind, cutting the expense of seabed foundations and allowing repairs on floating wind platforms to be carried out in port rather than out at sea.

The European Commission and the Danish EU presidency said the Energy Efficiency Directive could "realistically" come together in the next couple of months, despite member states' consistent watering down of the proposal.

"I think realistically a solution is possible under the Danish presidency," Energy Commissioner Günther Oettinger told journalists on Friday (20 April) after an informal energy council meeting in Horsens, Denmark.

A deal to deliver a 20% energy savings target is still be possible by 1 July, the commissioner said.

"The real message was that there was no blockade from anybody," Oettinger added, referring to meeting in Horsens. "My hope is we can come to a solution in June in an ambitious manner that will realise this 20% target."

Since it took over the rotating EU presidency in January, Denmark has been aiming to reach an agreement on the directive by 1 July, when its chairman role comes to an end. 

"I feel this is the most constructive discussion we have ever had in the Council [of ministers] on this file," said Martin Lidegaard, the Danish climate and energy minister.

EU countries have been rejecting the binding 20% savings target of the energy efficiency bill, which has entered its last negotiation phase.

Energy saving is the only one of three 2020 green targets the 27 member states are legally bound to reach.

The World Bank is helping corporations and international investors snap up cheap land in Africa and developing countries worldwide at the expense of local communities, environment and farm groups said in a statement released on Monday to coincide with the bank's annual land and poverty conference in Washington DC.

According to the groups, which include NGO Friends of the Earth International (FOEI) and international peasants' group La Via Campesina, decades of World Bank policies have pushed African and other governments to privatise land and focus on industrial farming. In addition, they say, the bank is playing a "key role" in the global rush for farmland by providing capital and guarantees to big multinational investors.

"The result has often been ... people forced off land they have traditionally farmed for generations, more rural poverty and greater risk of food shortages", said FOEI in a separate report launched ahead of the World Bank conference.

The event, which promises to focus on "land governance in a rapidly changing environment", is billed as a forum to discuss "innovative approaches" to land governance challenges including climate change, the growing demand for key natural resources, and rapid urbanisation. But campaigners say the conference mistakenly focuses on how to improve large-scale land deals rather than on helping local communities to secure or retain access to their land.

Monsanto (NYSE: MON  ) and Dow AgroSciences, a unit of Dow Chemical (NYSE: DOW  ) , could be facing a serious challenge to their crop chemical development plans. A remarkably nonrabid, diverse coalition of farmers and major food companies is pursuing legal action aimed at forcing the EPA and USDA to analyze potential risks associated with new weed killers in the pipeline. If they prevail, it could spell trouble for our heroes.

The Save Our Crops Coalition, or SOCC, comprises 2,000 farmers and other food interests, including Ball Corp. (NYSE: BLL  ) -- maker of those canning jars and other food packaging -- and Seneca Foods (Nasdaq: SENEA  ) , maker of Libby's brand foods. Its members represent both conventional and organic farming interests, and range from specialty growers to major agronomic crop producers. This isn't your usual band of fringe groups making noise that no one hears. Someone might actually pay attention to them.

Don't drift on me
At issue are the weed killers that would be designed to work in tandem with specific biotech crops. There is a growing body of evidence that suggests that these weed killers cause serious injury to nearby crops, and to the habitats of bees and other pollinators. Basically, the weed-killing chemicals drift to nearby fields, and it appears they may be destroying harvests there. Interestingly, the compound Dow is using was also a component of Agent Orange, the defoliant made infamous during the Vietnam War. SOCC doesn't mince words: They say these are "the most dangerous chemicals out there."

The companies say that they are taking all possible steps to assure that these products are used responsibly. However, history has shown that they only have so much control over the behavior of end users.

It's hard to gauge how much of an impact this lawsuit could have. On one hand, Dow and Monsanto have plenty of other revenue streams, and this is just one product class. On the other, the companies are developing these products because hippies' early predictions have started to come true: There is massive growth in herbicide-resistant weeds that no longer respond to the companies' existing products -- such as a little product called Roundup. If the lawsuit halts current development efforts, they are going to have to come up with something else.

A group of hi-tech tycoons including Google's Larry Page and Eric Schmidt have teamed up with explorer and film-maker James Cameron in a venture to mine nearby asteroids, hoping to turn science fiction into real profits.

The megamillion dollar plan is to use commercially built robotic ships to squeeze rocket fuel and valuable minerals such as platinum and gold out of the rocks that routinely whizz by Earth, with the aim of having a space-based fuel station up and running by 2020.

[snip]

Asteroids are made mostly of rock and metal, and range from a few metres wide to nearly 10 miles long. The new venture targets the free-flying asteroids, seeking to extract from them the rare earth metals that are used in batteries, electronics and medical devices, Diamandis said.

Water can be broken down in space to liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen for rocket fuel. However, water is very expensive to get off the ground, so the plan is to take it from an asteroid to a spot in space where it can be converted into fuel. From there, it can easily and cheaply be shipped to Earth orbit to refuel commercial satellites or spaceships from Nasa and other countries.

Build a gas station, and presumably the clients will come... but what will they look like?

Regular or premium, sir? er madam? er...

_{It is rightly acknowledged that people of faith have no monopoly of virtue - Queen Elizabeth II}

A few weeks ago, I got to a dinner party, promptly hid myself in the host's bedroom for 15 minutes and collapsed into a cascade of tears. The cause? Dry cleaning.

On the face of it, Moscow has most of the trappings of modern, European life. There are cafes, even non-smoking ones, where you can order a flat white. There are websites that will deliver your weekly supplies of hummus, fresh apricots and rich French cheeses. And there are dry cleaners which, in theory, will whisk your clothes away to some unseen locale and steam them spotless in the blink of an eye.

They key phrase here is, of course, "in theory". In practice, daily life in Russia is an endless battle against shopkeepers and waiters steeped in the best traditions of Soviet-era manners (walk into a shop and the first thing you'll hear is: "Girl! What do you want?"); those fresh fruits will probably be black by the time they make it through the city's gridlocked, muddy streets. And dry cleaning - that's a whole other experience altogether.

It goes something like this. You get to the dry cleaner. There's a woman, let's call her Oksana Alexandrovna, sitting behind a low counter, row upon row of clothes in plastic wrap behind her. She's dealing with a customer. This gives you time to reflect. "Russia is amazing," you think. "The changes this place has seen - 25 years ago, would I even be standing in a shop like this? The lady in front of me certainly wouldn't have been handing in a MaxMara dress to clean. A true middle-class experience. In Russia. I'm living it."

By now, about 12 minutes have passed. Oksana Alexandrovna is caressing the woman's clothes. Much paperwork is exchanged. A stamp machine is placed on the counter. You wonder what is happening - but soon enough you will know.

India has become the top spam-spewing nation on the planet, suggests a report.

Compiled by security firm Sophos, the report ranks nations by the amount of junk mail routed through computers in each country.

India has leapt to the top of the spam chart in less than a year, rapidly overtaking the US, said Sophos.

About 10% of all junk mail sent across the web came from or passed through computers in India, said the firm.

India's rapid rise up the chart of spam producers has been helped by the rapid growth of the web in the country, said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos.

The inexperience of the many first-time net users in India had led many to fall victim to hi-tech criminals, he said.

"The latest stats show that, as more first-time internet users get online in growing economies, they are not taking measures to block the malware infections that turn their PCs into spam-spewing zombies," he added. Social networks

About 80% of all junk email is thought to be routed through PCs hijacked by hi-tech criminals who use computer viruses to seize control of the machines. Once a machine is under their control they use them to send out mail on their behalf, typically relaying it from another nation.

The upcoming European Football championships means that biology student Anna Ivanova, 19, has to pack her suitcase. Her dormitory room, in block number 9 at Taras Shevchenko University, is to be rented out to football fans. The tournament, hosted jointly by Poland and Ukraine, kicks off on June 8. "I don't know where to go during the tournament," Ivanova said.

OAS_RICH('Middle2'); She isn't the only one. There is a serious shortage of accomadation in the four Ukrainian cities set to host matches during the tournament -- Kiev, Kharkov, Donetsk and Lviv. With crowds of tourists expected, thousands of students must vacate their dormitories as a result. Even worse, they are receiving no compensation nor have they been offered alternative housing. On the contrary: "We have to continue paying our dorm fees," Ivanova says.

The situation is even worse for students at Kiev's National Medical University: They have been asked to refurbish their rooms for the incoming guests -- and they have to shoulder the costs themselves.

The deal does have its beneficiaries, however, including the Hamburg-based travel company TUI AG. TUI booked the dormatories together with the Ukrainian provider Hamalia Tours. "TUI Travel Ukraine has more than 150 contracts to accommodate football fans, including in student dormitories, guest houses and hotels," said Andriy Stavenko, a TUI representative in Ukraine. For fans seeking to rent rooms, TUI has set up a booking agency called the Fan Accommodation Agency (FAA). On its website, the student rooms cost between €50 and €150 ($66-$197) per night.

University authorities are responsible for ensuring that the rooms are vactated in time -- and they also profit from the arrangement. "TUI pays a 20 to 25 percent commission to the universities," said Roman Ponomarenko, head of Ukraine's association of small hotels and apartments. Ponomarenko says that the commissions were directed to the universities via an intermediary company, though he declined to name the company involved. Universities in Kiev did not respond to telephone and written inquiries about the allegations.

Government and sanitation experts say Zimbabwe needs to increase efforts to promote good hygiene and invest in toilets and clean water provision, as the country grapples with a typhoid outbreak.

The country has reported more than 3,000 cases of typhoid since March. Typhoid is transmitted by the ingestion of food or water contaminated with the feces of an infected person. Most of the cases are from the country's capital, Harare, and there have been at least two reported deaths

However, the use of the "bush toilet" or open defecation is a much-used practice, which the Zimbabwe government is concerned about. Zimbabwe's Minister of Water Resources Samuel Sipepa Nkomo said it reflects the ingrained attitudes about sanitation and hygiene among the people in this southern African nation.

"We have a big problem with regards to open defecation and we have to put our heads together to deal with it," Nkomo told IPS.

Zimbabwe paid a high price for its limited investment in sanitation and water programmes between 2008 and 2009. More than 4,000 people died from cholera and over 100,000 were infected because of poor hygiene and a lack of toilet facilities. Cholera is also is transmitted by the ingestion of food or water contaminated with the feces of an infected person.

t has emerged that the next dead pop star to perform at a stadium near you could be Michael Jackson. How? Using the same technology that recreated the late rapper Tupac Shakur at Coachella last weekend. If you missed it, this was the festival's key talking point. Looking at his physical characteristics in old footage, the clever dudes at Hollywood CGi company Digital Domain made a spookily realistic 2-D video projection using a technique called Pepper's Ghost. The "hologram" led critics to predict the future of live entertainment would be Lazarus-style resurrections, though many thought it macabre. Watch the clip below, it's quite amazing.